Verus
The Maledieter Project A self-proclaimed legendary spiriter, and also a great warrior in his youth. Verus has connections all over the Baten Kaitos Universe and his name alone may grant one an audience with a leader of any Nation. He is also a high ranking official in Alfard and participated in the old wars, eventually being injured and weakened. After the wars, Verus was bitter, his years in war apparently making him unstable, and believed he deserved more power than he received. His lust for power attracted Wiseman, a vile sorcerer and villain who had been the instigator of the War of the Gods. Verus accepted him into his heart to gain power, but this allowed Wiseman to use him as his puppet, slowly manipulating his actions for his own ends. Fifteen years prior to Baten Kaitos Origins, as he rested, Verus had a beautiful woman named Gena as a maid who nursed him, with the pair eventually becoming romantically involved and made love, resulting in a son. Verus quickly took his infant son and sent him off, much to Gena's horror, to be part of the Maledieter project, a set of experiments that he helped initiate with Emperor Olgan for his plans and schemes for power. The experiments entailed binding pieces of Malpercio's leftover body parts, known as afterlings, to human beings and produce a man made spiriter. Test subjects from adults to new born infants were abducted and used in the experiments, which were very torturous and resulted in the deaths of many of the test subjects. Among them was Olgan's twelve year old son, Shanath, who was forced into the operation by Olgan, who wanted his son to be the perfect emperor, something he believed the experiments could yield as spiriters are known to possess enough power to sway the world's future. Not everyone can just become a spiriter though and Shanath was not a suitable candidate and his body rejected the afterling while still retaining some of it's power. The horrid pain Shanath endured at his father's hand caused Shanath to despise his father, seeing him as a power hungry tyrant who cared more for power than his own son. Olgan in turn grew to be disgusted with his son for not being strong enough to be a Maledieter, though he still loved his son deep down, and the two had a falling out that lasted for years and was never resolved. Lord Baelheit, one of the leaders in the experiments, soon succeeded in creating a spiriter, but it was far too unstable. As a result, the subject destroyed the entire facility, killing many, including Baelheit's wife and destroyed half of his daughters body. Olgan then canceled the project, while Gena broke into the dungeons where the abducted test subject victims were held, rescued Sagi, and escaped the empire. Verus lost contact with his son after Gena escaped with the child and fled to Hassaleh though Verus only cared about the potential and power his son had, who was the only subject to become perfectly assimilated with Malpercio's afterling, and couldn't care less about him or Gena. Gena was heartbroken over Verus's horrid ambitions and deception, but vowed to never tell her son about his father or what happened to him in Alfrad. Olgan would order for the rest of the Maledieters to be released to hush the events up, but kept a list of all the subjects for possible future purposes. Baelheit in the meantime fled, but found solitude in the guardian spirit, Daimon, whom gave him the wisdom to create machina, which he invented as soon as he returned to the empire and saved his daughter by binding her body to it. Pro-Machination Years later, Verus had gained an impressive reputation and was seen by many as a hero. As such, Emperor Olgan has placed his trust in Verus and appointed him as the commander of Alfard's Imperial army. While a seemingly noble and brave man, Verus hid his true personality well, one of an extremely violent and sadistic man who was plotting to seize control of the empire and subject it’s people for his own plans in conquering the world. Even years after his war injury had healed, Verus continued to use a cane to fool people into believing he was still injured, allowing him to give orders and not embark on them himself, instead remaining in the comfort of his residence making his plans and overseeing his operations in comfort and relaxation. He also lied to the citizens of Alfrad by saying he was a spiriter, using it to gain respect and recognition, but truly held nothing but the personification of evil in the form of Wiseman. He would soon acquire an assistant known as Geldoblame who had so much respect for Verus that he may have fell in love with him. Verus knew of this eventually and used Geldoblame’s feelings for him to manipulate him as well. Throughout his years of service in the empire, Verus befriended Shanath and preyed upon Shanath's hatred and anger for his father and convinced him to assist him in his plans to conquer the empire, promising him great power and a taste of ultimate revenge against his father. Shanath agreed and through him, Verus was able to manipulate others into instigating events that would aid his plans. Shanath soon became the personnel assistant of Lord Baelheit and was put in command of the Dark Service, a secret organization that took Baelheit”s orders without question no matter what the cost. Through Shanath, Verus was able to control the Dark Service and had his own orders and schemes fulfilled. With Shanath, Verus was also able to keep an eye on Baelheit’s activities and factor them in with his own. As Verus continued in his plans, he assisted Olgan and Baelheit in creating more machina, believing it to be the perfect way to conquer the other continents. Olgan soon desired to pro-machinate every continent to control them and ordered for the construction of an enormous flying fortress known as Tarazed. Verus assisted in this, but also made a stance of using the power of one's heart over machina, simply to cover his true ambitions to use the machina in his grand designs. As pro-machination efforts began to take root, Verus planned to use the technology to restructure the world and take control of the empire. In order to begin his plans, he had to first put an end to Emperor Olgan, both to vacate a spot for emperor and to force Baelheit to begin his plans and step up Pro-Machination efforts. Baelheit was planning on capturing Malpericio's afterlings and transferring their power into mechanical weapons he developed called Machina Armor. He also had plans to pro-machinate each continent and launch Tarazed to be his main base to rule and oversee all from. It was taking too long though so Verus needed Olgan out of the way to compel Baelheit to work faster, as Baelheit would to need to please the citizens of Alfrad with some form of accomplishment. Verus also desired both the afterlings and to use Tarazed for his plans, but knew that he would need formidable power to capture the afterlings and stand up to pro-machination to insure that Baelheit would have no choice but to finish and launch Tarazed. Shanath informed Verus that a young spiriter known as Sagi was in the Dark Service and Verus immediately knew that this was his son, the Maledieter. He then found his perfect pawn to draw out the other afterlings and ordered Shanath to pass the order to the Dark Service to assassinate Emperor Olgan, all the while having Shanath state that the order came from Baelheit to avoid any suspicion. Verus planned to pin Sagi for the assassination, putting Verus in the perfect position to persuade his former son to help him. He allowed Shanath to personally kill the emperor, both to keep his promise of revenge to the boy and to insure that the emperor indeed perishes. He also ordered Shanath to bring him the list of Malpercio's afterlings that Olgan had kept as a record of the Maledieter Project so that they may begin collecting them while Baelheit works to secure the rest he has on his own separate list. The plan went perfectly as the emperor was murdered, Sagi was framed for it, and the list was stolen and secured in Verus's possession. Verus then used Geldoblame to assist Sagi and invite him over to his residence. At the same time, Verus runs for Emperor against Baelheit and hopes to win to initiate his plans head on and not from the shadows. Eventually Sagi meets Verus and agrees to help him in standing against pro-machination. Unknowingly, Sagi was drawing out afterlings for Verus and Shanath to capture and bind them to Tarazed to increase it's power and flying abilities. By Sagi destroying Machination efforts, he would force the launch of Tarazed, as it would be the only option left to conquer the continents when pro-machination fails. With Shanath as his double agent, Verus was able to both use him to carry out his own orders while appearing to serve Baelheit and keep an eye on his political rival for any useful information for his plans. Shanath did as he ordered and pretended to remain loyal to Baelheit, all the while leading pro-machination operations on each continent and drawing out several afterlings for Sagi to defeat so he may capture them. The Monster inside the Man All was going perfectly to plan except for Verus's election campaign to become the next emperor of Alfrad. Verus was running to become the next Emperor to secure even more power, but was no match against Baelheit as he was seen as a hero for capturing the afterlings. Verus then came up with a horrid plan to draw out the afterling in Sagi in front of Baelheit to slander his good name. To accomplish this, he has Gena, his former lover and Sagi's mother, abducted and her wings pulled out in front of Sagi. This was done by Shanath, but was seen as a publicity stunt to the public eye under Baelheit's orders. This was not the case though, as Shanath merely convinced Baelheit to allow it, thinking it would serve his campaign against people having Wings of the Heart. When Sagi saw this, he was overcome with so much anger and hatred that he turned into an afterling, but was subdued. Even after all this, Baelheit still won the election and was the new Emperor. Nonetheless, Sagi succeeded in destroying Machination efforts, forcing Baelheit to launch Tarazed. All that remained was for Sagi to kill Baelheit, allowing Verus to take control of the fortress and conquer the world, reshaping it in his image. When Sagi finally manages to defeat Baelheit, Verus arrives on the fortress with Geldoblame and brutally murders Baelheit. He reveals through this betrayal that he had played everyone for a fool and had used Geldoblame and Sagi to achieve dominance. In the case of Geldoblame who had loved him this was heartbreaking. As the main villain he revealed his use of the Afterlings to obtain absolute power and desired to destroy everything and rebuild it as his own. As Verus took control of Tarazed, he prepares for an all scale attack on all the nations of the world, planning to slaughter the entire Alfrad senate for refusing to elect him and all the people who opposed him. Going down to the bowels of the fortress, Verus programs all of the Machina and prepares for them to invade the continents. Sagi, Milly, and Guillo follow him, each fueled by personnel tragedies and betrayals he put them through, and engage him in a fight to the death. Verus and his machina are soon defeated and while Verus tries to call the Machina to help him, they turn on him and brutally attack him again and again until every shred of life leaves his body. After being defeated, Wiseman reveals himself and, using the immense hatred and vengeance in Verus's heart to resurface in true form, consumes Verus's heart of taint and power hunger and forms an amalgamation of the two. Wiseman then transports the trio into an inter-dimensional rift and reveals his intentions to devour their hearts and then force the rest of the world to join with him and become it's all powerful ruler for eternity. He soon attacks the trio and engages in a brutal showdown, which goes in his favor until the five sibling gods of Malpercio temporarily escape from their tortured imprisonments to help. With the encouragement of the five brave warriors and gods of Malpercio, Sagi, Milly, and Guillo all recover and relentlessly attack Wiseman. After an intense fight, Wiseman is finally destroyed, taking Verus’s body with him and leaving nothing but the villain’s old cane behind. With this, Verus's plans and horrid ambitions came to an end, but the ramifications of his actions would impact the future of the world for decades to come. His betrayal against Geldoblame caused the once noble man to break into insanity and turn into a tyrant of unimaginable evil. This would lead to another campaign and reign of terror, while the energies of Wiseman may have very well still survived and influenced his actions as he had done to Verus. Speculation Some fans theorize that he is either Wiseman reborn, or has always been under Wiseman's control throughout the entire game, considering his rather frightening transformation in personality at Tarazed; and seemingly enigmatic, dubious nature on occasions. Videos thumb|300px|right|Verus meets his end at the hands of Sagi. Category:Characters Category:Villains Category:Bosses Category:Videos